Russian Roulette: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Plot for Global Revolution by Giles Milton
Authors: Giles Milton
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enemies.
‘Meeting all these people as human beings, I could not believe the rubbishy propaganda that was being poured out by other Russians who, hoping for their destruction no matter by whom, pretended that they were German agents.’
Ransome was soon so close to the leading revolutionaries that Western diplomats began to wonder if he had ‘unusual channels of information.’ This he did. Unbeknown to anyone in London, he had fallen in love with Trotsky’s personal secretary, Evgenia Shelepina, and was seeing her on a daily basis.
Their relationship was to transform the information he received from the regime: it was Shelepina who typed up Trotsky’s correspondence and planned all his meetings. Suddenly, Ransome found himself with access to highly secretive documents and telegraphic transmissions.
He had first set eyes on Evgenia when he interviewed Trotsky on 28 December 1917, but he did not speak to her until later that evening, when he visited the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. He poked his head into a room and, amid a group of unfamiliar faces, immediately recognised her.
‘This was Evgenia,’ he would write, ‘the tall, jolly girl whom later on I was to marry and to whom I owe the happiest days of my life.’
Ransome had been looking for the official censor to stamp his despatch: Evgenia offered to help him find the right person. She also said she would try to find them both some food in the censor’s office. ‘Come along,’ she said, ‘perhaps he has some potatoes. Potatoes are the only thing we want. Come along.’
They eventually found both the censor and his potatoes: the latter were in the process of burning on an overheated primus stove. Evgenia rescued them from the pot and shared them out.
Ransome, trapped in his unhappy marriage with Ivy, was smitten by Evgenia. She was no beauty; she was tall, ungainly and big-boned. ‘She must have been two or three inches above six feet in her stockings,’ wrote George Hill, who preferred his women to be petite, young and sexually alluring. Yet even Hill eventually accepted that feminine charm was not all about surface beauty.
‘At first glance, one was apt to dismiss her as a very fine-looking specimen of Russian peasant womanhood, but closer acquaintance revealed in her depths of unguessed qualities.’
The Americans in Petrograd called her ‘The Big Girl’ because, explained one, ‘she was a big girl’. She played an important role in the months that followed the revolution for she controlled the visitors who wished to get Trotsky’s ear. She was far more than a secretary; she could provide (or deny) access to all of the Bolshevik leaders.
‘She was methodical and intellectual,’ wrote Hill, ‘a hard worker with an enormous sense of humour. She saw things quickly and could analyse political situations with the speed and precision with which an experienced bridge player analyses a hand of cards.’
She was ruthlessly efficient in her work. ‘I do not believe she ever turned away from Trotsky anyone who was of the slightest consequence, and yet it was no easy matter to get past that maiden unless one had that something.’
Ransome took the new Bolshevik leadership very seriously and his reports on their activities – often sympathetic – caused him increasing difficulties with officials in London. His relationship with Evgenia did not help matters. In the British Embassy in Petrograd, there were whispered rumours that far from serving the British government, he was actually working as a double agent.
Ransome did little to discourage these rumours for they only served to boost his credentials amongst the leading Bolsheviks. Besides, he shared some of the views of the revolutionary leaders and genuinely hoped that Lenin and Trotsky would drag Russia into a brighter future.
Mansfield Cumming was quick to realise that the change of regime in Russia required a whole new approach to espionage. His team of agents were no longer working
‘Meeting all these people as human beings, I could not believe the rubbishy propaganda that was being poured out by other Russians who, hoping for their destruction no matter by whom, pretended that they were German agents.’
Ransome was soon so close to the leading revolutionaries that Western diplomats began to wonder if he had ‘unusual channels of information.’ This he did. Unbeknown to anyone in London, he had fallen in love with Trotsky’s personal secretary, Evgenia Shelepina, and was seeing her on a daily basis.
Their relationship was to transform the information he received from the regime: it was Shelepina who typed up Trotsky’s correspondence and planned all his meetings. Suddenly, Ransome found himself with access to highly secretive documents and telegraphic transmissions.
He had first set eyes on Evgenia when he interviewed Trotsky on 28 December 1917, but he did not speak to her until later that evening, when he visited the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. He poked his head into a room and, amid a group of unfamiliar faces, immediately recognised her.
‘This was Evgenia,’ he would write, ‘the tall, jolly girl whom later on I was to marry and to whom I owe the happiest days of my life.’
Ransome had been looking for the official censor to stamp his despatch: Evgenia offered to help him find the right person. She also said she would try to find them both some food in the censor’s office. ‘Come along,’ she said, ‘perhaps he has some potatoes. Potatoes are the only thing we want. Come along.’
They eventually found both the censor and his potatoes: the latter were in the process of burning on an overheated primus stove. Evgenia rescued them from the pot and shared them out.
Ransome, trapped in his unhappy marriage with Ivy, was smitten by Evgenia. She was no beauty; she was tall, ungainly and big-boned. ‘She must have been two or three inches above six feet in her stockings,’ wrote George Hill, who preferred his women to be petite, young and sexually alluring. Yet even Hill eventually accepted that feminine charm was not all about surface beauty.
‘At first glance, one was apt to dismiss her as a very fine-looking specimen of Russian peasant womanhood, but closer acquaintance revealed in her depths of unguessed qualities.’
The Americans in Petrograd called her ‘The Big Girl’ because, explained one, ‘she was a big girl’. She played an important role in the months that followed the revolution for she controlled the visitors who wished to get Trotsky’s ear. She was far more than a secretary; she could provide (or deny) access to all of the Bolshevik leaders.
‘She was methodical and intellectual,’ wrote Hill, ‘a hard worker with an enormous sense of humour. She saw things quickly and could analyse political situations with the speed and precision with which an experienced bridge player analyses a hand of cards.’
She was ruthlessly efficient in her work. ‘I do not believe she ever turned away from Trotsky anyone who was of the slightest consequence, and yet it was no easy matter to get past that maiden unless one had that something.’
Ransome took the new Bolshevik leadership very seriously and his reports on their activities – often sympathetic – caused him increasing difficulties with officials in London. His relationship with Evgenia did not help matters. In the British Embassy in Petrograd, there were whispered rumours that far from serving the British government, he was actually working as a double agent.
Ransome did little to discourage these rumours for they only served to boost his credentials amongst the leading Bolsheviks. Besides, he shared some of the views of the revolutionary leaders and genuinely hoped that Lenin and Trotsky would drag Russia into a brighter future.
Mansfield Cumming was quick to realise that the change of regime in Russia required a whole new approach to espionage. His team of agents were no longer working
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